Taking a page from the B2C book to improve B2B product user experience

When you think of B2B products, chances are you don’t picture the seamless, intuitive user experience that comes alongside the best of B2C products. Most enterprise products have a reputation for being complex and versatile, but not simple and universal. While B2B user experience focuses on providing in-depth content and adaptability, the B2C user experience delivers ease of use and, in the best cases, customer delight.

Historically, B2B product users have made sacrifices on user experience for a tool that provides the most value to their business. And while that business value is critical, can’t enterprise product users have both?

They can—and should. Take a moment to consider how navigation apps like Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Waze transformed the way we travel. Long gone are the days of painstakingly writing down directions and addresses, only to inevitably have something go wrong along your route that throws all that careful planning off its axis. These apps provide ease of use and flexibility and brought transformational change to a process.

At Rocket Software, we recently applied this thinking to the process of data discovery. Much like complicated navigation, the challenges of data tracing, inventory counting, and context setting can easily snowball. When someone within an organization simply needed to uncover how a certain data point was generated, the solution wasn’t actually simple. Uncovering that information could involve multiple IT tools, in-depth analysis within each of those tools, and explanations from data experts within the organization. Nothing about that screams “delightful.”

By considering the best of B2C product design as part of our B2B enterprise platform, Rocket Data Intelligence, we were able to bring some of the best aspects of B2C products into the B2B product fold. To achieve the same, keep the following in mind:

• Make your B2B tool feel personable, the same way modern websites and apps feel. This means delivering customizations and the ability to set preferences and intuitive interfaces.

• Save your users time. So many B2C products are aimed at speed and convenience, but many B2B products lag behind and remain cumbersome. With our Rocket Data Intelligence launch, we focused on making it even easier and faster for users to get answers to their data questions, eliminating detours that could send users scrambling for an answer over days, weeks, or even months with outdated, manual methods.

• Balance making traditionally complex enterprise tasks—like consuming complex information—incredibly easy and appealing, while preserving important content and value for the business. The best way to achieve this balance is to truly understand the user. What are their dreams, goals, biggest tasks, and greatest challenges? A keen understanding of what they like, what they can’t stand, and what they need is key to helping them do their job better with the help of a product they love.

Learn more about the new Rocket Data Intelligence experience.